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Google is making it easy to play ping pong whilst wearing the Lenovo Mirage Solo headset, whether you’re in VR or not.

Alongside today’s announcement of a pair of experimental six degrees of freedom (6DOF) controllers for the standalone Daydream headset, Google also introduced a new pass-through camera system that will be coming to developers soon. The feature uses the Solo’s built-in cameras to show the real world on your display, much like we’ve seen with smartphone-powered headsets such as Gear VR. Unlike Gear, though, Google is using Solo’s tracking features to create convincing depth perception, so you can see the world as it truly is.

But there’s another feature that’s being added on top of this; AR support. When it pass-through mode, users will be able to summon virtual images and project them in the real world, essentially making the Mirage Solo a Magic Leap or HoloLens. A similar feature was recently revealed for HTC’s new Vive Pro, too.

Finally, the company is now officially recognizing a feature we’ve long spoken about; Android app support. Users will soon be able to bring any app into the virtual world via a virtual screen. When the Solo released earlier this year this aspect was somewhat hidden within the kit’s UI, but it’s good to see it getting more official support now.

While Google says developers will be able to get their hands on these features soon, there’s no word on what a wider consumer rollout will look like. Will developers be able to make premium AR apps for sale on Mirage Solo, for example? Hopefully we’ll find out more at the company’s upcoming Made by Google event, which takes place early next month.

Google revealed an experimental accessory for the Lenovo Mirage Solo which adds a pair of six degrees of freedom controllers to the standalone Daydream headset.

The faceplate straps to the front of Mirage Solo, which features a USB-C port on the side for powering an accessory. A Google blog post describes the way the faceplate communicates with the controllers as a “unique optical tracking system” which “uses machine learning and off-the-shelf parts to accurately estimate the 3D position and orientation of the controllers.”

Google is now accepting applications from developers for the controllers and a few creators have already gotten their hands on the kit. Several questions remain unanswered by Google representatives including how long it will take developers to receive kits, how many kits Google is making total, and whether key Google-owned apps like Tilt Brush and Job Simulator might make the jump to the Mirage Solo by way of this developer kit add-on.

The controllers include a touchpad with click button, trigger, grip, app button and dedicated Daydream button to access the main menu or to “recenter your view.” The faceplate emits infrared light in a pattern which allows the system to deduce the relative positions of the controllers. Google’s existing WorldSense tracking uses the outward-facing cameras already on the headset to figure out head position, so combining this information provides a completely standalone VR experience with full freedom for both head and hand movements.

The announcement from Google comes on the eve of the 5th Oculus Connect developer conference. The event in San Jose, California also marks five years since Facebook’s acquisition of the Oculus VR startup. Currently known by the code-name Santa Cruz, Facebook’s higher-end Oculus standalone VR headset could ship to consumers in early 2019 with a similar class of hand controller as compared with this new Mirage Solo accessory.

Facebook’s upcoming higher end standalone headset will also have 6dof hand controllers, no faceplate required.

While the controllers are coming to the Mirage Solo, don’t expect them to arrive on Google’s other Daydream headset, the smartphone-powered Daydream View. While the two devices share the same content, the latter doesn’t include any 6DOF tracking capabilities, though it is possible that Google is keeping an update saved for its Made by Google event early next month.

Lenovo’s Mirage Solo debuted earlier this year with hidden features — including the ability to run Android apps in a 2D mode — that suggested it could be turned into a surprisingly capable developer kit. The controllers will certainly be a dream come true for some developer sand the headset is also getting a “see through mode” which can even be used to prototype AR experiences by way of the headset’s outward-facing cameras.

We hope to get the chance to try this tracking system from Google sometime soon.

Accounting+, the expansion to Crows, Crows, Crows hilariously eccentric VR experience (which itself was born from a collaboration with Rick and Morty co-creator Justin Roiland), is coming to the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift very soon. The original game did launch on the Vive all the way back in 2016, though this is the first time it’ll be officially appearing on the Rift. The expansion, meanwhile, first launched on PSVR late last year.

All three versions of the game will be fitted with brand new content that total up to three times the size of the original experience, as this typically mad trailer explains. Accounting+ isn’t a game as such, more of a series of increasingly outlandish sequences in which zany characters will shout at you and generally make you feel extremely uncomfortable. There’s nothing quite like it in all of VR and we wouldn’t change a thing about it.

The new version of the game will come with support for multiple languages and include a level loader that allows you to visit any point in the experience on a whim so that you can bring your friends straight into the bit where you cut that blob open.

Elsewhere, Roiland’s Squanch Games is currently busy working on another PSVR exclusive, Trover Saves The Universe.

All the way back in February 2017 we wrote about Espire 1: VR Operative, a promising new VR stealth game from indie developer Michael Wentworth-Bell. Around August last year, though, the game went dark. That is until this week.

Now under the name of Digital Lode, the developer has reemerged from the shadows with an amazing new trailer for Espire 1 along with the news that it’s going to be published by Killing Floor: Incursion developer, Tripwire Interactive. The game’s set to offer a full single-player campaign. Check it out below.

Espire 1 looks like it could finally deliver on the promise of the thrilling VR stealth game. Playing as an Espire operative, you sneak through environments using weapons and high-tech gadgets to clear the way. Much like Budget Cuts and Unknightly before it, the game will place an emphasis on the player’s physical movement, allowing them to throw magazines that will create noisy distractions and even knock guards unconscious by hitting them with the butt of your weapon. Wall-climbing and crouching through vents also appears to be in.

On top of the campaign, there will be challenge missions to compete in via global leaderboards. One especially nice touch is the use of the built-in microphones in VR headsets, which allow you to make noises to distract guards but might also have you tripping up too. Tripwire is doing more than just publishing the game, though, having contributed to marketing, tech, art and audio for the project. Hopefully that will give Espire 1 a level of polish that it couldn’t have achieved before.

For now, we know that Epsire 1 will be arriving sometime in 2019 for unconfirmed headsets, though the game’s previously been shown running on an HTC Vive.